I think that is an unfair characterization of the OP’s post. It wasn’t about him being inconvenienced, he was using it as an example of how cyclists’ behavior can aggravate drivers.
Maybe. But the tone of the OP came off as blaming the cyclist for riding legally because he was inconvenienced. If he didn’t feel inconvenienced why would he think other drivers would feel angry at the cyclist. And he felt so aggrieved that he illegally used his phone while driving to take a picture, and then write a post expressing his aggravation.
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Like a lot of silly arguments in life…arguments against cyclists are usually a mess of disjointed, disingenuous arguments designed to hide the overriding sentiments of anger and entitlement, which is really what the argument stems from.
Drivers feel the road is for them, they’re annoyed/angry any time someone takes a piece of it from them. That’s literally all there is to it.
Drivers talking about the safety of cyclists is generally speaking, laughable. They’re just grasping at straws to come up with a way to make their whining sound a bit less self serving.
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On top of car drivers angry feelings at cyclists
And the age of having every distraction in car
We had to deal with the human factor… Believe me the video below also applies to bicycles
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I think that is how you read it, but not how it was intentioned. I certainly didn’t interpret it that way and he further explained his intent later in the thread.
All this “tsk tsking” over him snapping a pic is kinda silly, IMO….we have all done something with our phones at some point while driving.
And we all rightly should be shamed severely for it, every single time.
Phones are the new drunk driving. How many decades and deaths did it take for society to come around to viewing people having 6 drinks and then driving around as unacceptable?
Just because it is commonplace does not mean it is ethical.
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You’re kinda making the point here - cycling in the road is not illegal nor should it be dangerous. Drivers break the law regularly and are in control of a lethal weapon - no matter what you think you might do to “be safer” on the roads as a cyclist, the problem lies with those in control of the lethal weapons. It’s a societal issue in how we view driving offences as different to other law breaking.
Let me know where I said it was.
Pointing out the hypocrisy doesn’t mean I endorse the behavior.
I don’t think you have understood my posts.
That comes from the car-centric culture we have. Driving is paramount.
It isn’t deemed essential to teach new drivers about safety in situations where they are putting people in significant danger by operating a large vehicle capable of high speeds. Most planning of public space is designed around getting a car quickly from point A-B. Driving is something people have to do so much of, and becomes mundane. So then the average driver is ignorant and doesn’t consider the person on the bike or crossing the street as more important than a potential 20-second delay on their drive.
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I’d say education is not the problem though. If a person is truly too stupid to understand that a cyclist or pedestrian is endangered because of 2 tons of steel speeding towards them, they should not be allowed to have a license.
The issue is expectations of behavior, reinforced by strict enforcement of laws promoting the expected behavior.
Tickets for 1mph over the speed limit. Impoundment of vehicle for 10mph over. Clearly running a red light is a suspended license. Treat phone use the same as a DUI, with night in jail. Speed/red light Cameras on every corner of urban areas as standard. Software to disable phone access while in vehicles.
That’s not to say that’s the only needed change…clearly infrastructure and culture needs to change as well, moving away from as you put it, the car centric view.
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Can you see where dutch cyclists ride, though? (that’s a 60km/h outside city limits road, the highest speed road with mixed traffic in the Netherlands)
and another example within the city limits
Dear Cyclist, this is why drivers don’t see you.
Add the proliferation of tall pickup trucks and SUVs with numerous blind spots and you have a no-win situation for cyclists. Even riding in bike lanes has become sketchy,
Every day on every ride you must assume you are invisible at all times.
Doesn’t matter whether they like you or not when the excuse will be “Sorry, Officer. I never saw them.”
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/thread:
This is why gravel cycling exists.
It is still important to note that the majority of the American driving curriculum is from the mindset of following these safety rules because you (the driver) might get hurt. In cases like DUIs or texting these actions are worse because someone else might get hurt. 25mph is a safe speed to drive in spaces like a neighborhood where you expect people to be walking in the street, and speed limits have a 10 mph buffer before any real consequences like a speeding ticket.
Removing the cycling context, the plan to reduce the speed limit by 5mph and replace an uncontrolled intersection with a roundabout has been protested in my county. This plan was drafted because there were 3 fatal vehicle collisions at the intersection.
Yes agreed on all points. Improved education certainly would not hurt, but it’s just a single piece of the puzzle.
Really I think the laws, for the most part in the US, are spot on. The only thing truly lacking is enforcement. Heck…police are some of the worst offenders themselves when it comes to traffic violations, and I’m not talking about emergency situations.
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This.
Human beings in general (and car drivers in particular) are really bad signal acquisition and processing systems. Unlike some other species that have very specialized skills, such as the ability to see movements anywhere in their field of vision, we are generalists who have an awful signal-to-noise ratio, sensors and processors overloaded with useless signals (“What brand of car was that? Did you see how she’s dressed? Isn’t that house pretty? Wow, that ad is really offensive! What were you saying, dear? Wait, that’s my boss calling!”). We cyclists are signals trying to get through this noise. Two simple rules: be visible, stay visible. Very visible. Blinking lights, blindingly yellow clothes, and no hide-and-seek from behind parked cars. Middle of the lane if you need to.
The only way not to annoy a driver is by being invisible. And that’s not a safe idea.
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Yea that’s the other side of all of this.
Even IF everyone follows the law, even IF cycling infrastructure is dramatically improved, I think fundamentally the idea of the automobile is flawed, as human being are not equipped to drive them in a consistently safe manner under the best of circumstances. This is why I am so on board with AI drivers (or just eliminating the automobile as something used in daily life).
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My point on the “tsk tsking” is that taking out your phone to take a picture (as opposed to describing later in words in a post) shows a level of annoyance (anger?) to do something that is REALLY dangerous. The OP in follow-up posts might have tried to clarify his intent, but I fall back on “taking your phone out to take a picture of a cyclist while driving is really dangerous” to support my reading of the initial post showing a high level of annoyance at the cyclist in question.
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Going through insurance seems more plausible, at least for the speeding aspect. Similar to the plug in accelerometers that some have already. It’d need to know the local speed limit somehow, though. And collectively they have an incentive to make driving safer.